


When Your Curves Fit My Hands

by redfantasyfox



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Genderswap, Geralt is a woman temporarily, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, He's very smol, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, I've seen exactly two episodes of the netflix show and read half of the last wish, Jaskier has thoughts about that, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Feelings, M/M, Mutual Pining, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Sharing a Bed, They both have feelings okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:00:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24058609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redfantasyfox/pseuds/redfantasyfox
Summary: Look, Geralt is a woman. He mostly hates it. But Jaskier helps him hate it a little less.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 7
Kudos: 261





	When Your Curves Fit My Hands

Geralt has been stuck as a woman for three days. Three long, excruciating days, made worse by how much he has to fumble with his over-sized clothes just to piss.

No part of his body suits him; his feet are too stubby, his chest is too bulky, and his hips are both useless and soft. Even his stirrups on Roach need readjusting to compensate for how stupidly short he is. The whole affair has put him in a terrible mood.

“Just borrow my clothes,” Jaskier says for the umpteenth time, watching as Geralt binds his trousers to his hips with a length of corded rope. “And for gods’ sake, relieve yourself behind a tree or something.”

Geralt grunts by way of reply.

All in all, the awkwardness only comes in moments like these—when Geralt is naked, mostly, and the bagginess of his black clothes can’t hide just how outrageously petite and feminine he looks. That, or when he’s trying (and failing) to keep Jaskier out of trouble. Geralt can still fight, still kill, but he’s clumsier than he’s ever been, and twice Jaskier’s been on the nasty end of a thrashing werewolf before Geralt found his footing and slew the damn thing.

He shouldn’t be so shitty at this; his body is still his body. It moves when he tells it to, and his potions still have the same effect. But it’s the clunkiness that’s throwing him off, the shorter arms, the weaker hands. For being such a small woman, he’s pathetically clumsy.

“It’s a spell, it’ll pass,” is what he tells himself. _Fucking kill me_ is what he means.

“I’m just saying,” Jaskier repeats, “you’d be able to move much better if you didn’t have to tuck your shirt six inches into your pants every day.”

Geralt pauses from doing exactly that.

*

In the heat of the early morning, there’s nothing else to do. They pack up, move on, and dodge a slew of fallen trees until the forest gives way to paved road. But something about the weight of the wind feels off. Strained. Geralt tenses visibly.

“Jaskier,” he says, tilting back his head. He can almost smell it—something red hot and fleeting, sour and wet. Not fear, or anger. Something harsher. Hunger.

Jaskier is halfway through some kind of retort when Geralt throws himself across the road and tackles him to the ground. The smell of wet dog assails them, then the swampy, pungent odor of spilled entrails and chewed flesh. Just then, the heavy body of something furry and black lunges out of the brush, missing them by the breadth of a ghoul's hand. Hardly at all. 

When Geralt looks up, the werewolf is gone, but the trackway it leaves in the dirt is wide enough to swallow a horse.

“Go!” he commands, and Jaskier is on his feet in a heartbeat, his hands twisted around the tiny blade he keeps in his boot. He takes half a step back, then half a step forward, swaying in place behind the markedly smaller and narrower Geralt.

“Maybe you’ll need me,” Jaskier says, grinning through the blood that’s running down from his nose. It’s the last thing Geralt hears him say for the rest of the day.

*

Geralt carries a wounded Jaskier over his shoulder to the nearest village, eliciting less outcry than normal because of his tits. At least, he assumes it’s because of his tits; everything else about him seems familiar enough to rouse suspicion. White hair, amber eyes, two swords, the smell of death. But he meets so little resistance it almost unsettles him.

He’s been avoiding large groups of people all his life, but especially now. It’s easier; easier than explaining why he’s still him, even with an ass about as shapely as they come.

Jaskier is proof enough of how much Geralt's new body affects things. A week ago, the bard wouldn’t have risked his life trying to fight a monster three times his size. A week ago, he wouldn’t have tried sleeping without a blanket so Geralt could have two. “Your skin’s not made of iron anymore,” he’d say. Geralt just tells him to fuck off.

He’s a different man around a woman. Or maybe he’s just bolder. Either way, it shouldn’t make Geralt feel the way it does.

For the moment though, Jaskier’s bloody and bruised and _dying_. There’s bone sticking out of his skin in two places, and his breathing sounds like it’s been splintered by a long wooden tube.

It takes a warm bed, half a potion, and enough milk of the poppy to almost kill a man just to get Jaskier through that first night.

*

By the second, Jaskier’s chest has turned black in all the wrong places—around his heart, over his lungs, across the dip of his pelvis that trails lower, into his trousers. He’s pale and splotchy nearly everywhere that isn't bruised, with blood rushing to the surface or spilling through Geralt’s hands when he moves. It’s horrific.

By the third night, Jaskier is back to cracking jokes and composing songs between bouts of ragged wheezing and agonizing groans. Geralt decides, right then, that he hates hearing the bard so weak and pained. He'd rather unconsciousness keep him sedated.

“We should share the bed,” Jaskier eventually says, waving to the side of the mattress he’s not using. Geralt drops into the nearest chair, thankful the flimsy thing can take his weight, and refuses.

“Just get better,” he says. He doesn’t mention they don’t have much coin left.

“Don’t be so grumpy," Jaskier replies. "You’ve hardly moved since the last time I was up. You’re not sleeping?”

“Of course I’m not sleeping," Geralt snaps back. How could he? He’s impossibly frustrated. “Someone has to make sure you don’t fucking die.”

Jaskier looks up at him from the left half of the bed, the thin sheen of sweat on his neck hinting at a fever that’s not long broken. “That’s almost sweet of you, Geralt. I didn’t think you cared.”

Geralt mumbles something to himself. “Go to sleep, Jaskier,” he replies.

*

It’s cold on the fifth morning; too cold to leave the relative warmth of their dockside inn. But they have to go—Geralt has maybe enough coin left to buy them half a mug of ale. And shitty ale at that.

“Can you walk?” he asks Jaskier, and rather than answering, the bard just gets up. Stumbles. Then sits back down.

“How can anyone breathe with broken ribs?” he asks, cradling his chest between his hands and wincing. His newest round of bandages are made from strips of Geralt’s shirt, since the bedsheet was ripped apart the night before. For the moment, the Witcher is only wearing pants.

“Try shutting your mouth and using your nose,” Geralt suggests, crossing his arms. Jaskier follows the movement and then looks away.

“Would it kill you to put something on?” he asks, sounding strangled. “You’re a woman. Have some propriety.”

“You’ve seen naked women before,” Geralt retorts, not moving. In truth, he’s a little bemused by Jaskier’s reaction to his tits. Again, he assumes it’s the tits.

“Yes, but those women are usually screaming my name, not plotting how to strangle me.”

Geralt doesn’t answer. He could, but he doesn’t want to. “Just get ready to go,” he says, as he gets to his feet. “And pass me a shirt.”

*

Jaskier was right, of course. Geralt does move better when he’s wearing the bard’s fine silk and chiffon.

“I hate that it suits you,” the bard says, watching Geralt from the other side of Roach. Both men are walking down the strip of road that leads out of town; road that isn’t really road, but closer to a downtrodden animal trail pockmarked by horse shit. “The colour, I mean.”

“Hm,” Geralt says, readjusting his swords. They’re heavy on his back and his hip, but he likes the feeling of the weight. It reminds him that’s he alive.

*

It takes them two days of slow travelling and slower hunting to find another inn that’ll take their coin. But to earn that coin, Jaskier has to stay up half the night, performing till his fingers start to bleed. He can hardly sing, but the music’s enough. It has to be.

By the time the crowd lets him go, Geralt's pleased to have gotten about an hour of sleep in his chair at the back of the common room.

“You look like death,” he tells the bard, which is his way of saying, _I wish you didn’t have to do this_. But he might as well wish for a hundred thousand gold while he’s at it.

He lets Jaskier lead him up the stairs by the hand, his own grip so unsure and unsteady that it’s maddening. “You could’ve left me down there,” the bard says. “You might’ve slept a bit more, in our room.”

Geralt grunts. Jaskier’s palm engulfs his like the scolding heat of a newly drawn bath. It’s almost pleasant.

But when they get to the door of their room, the bard lets go. “Ladies first,” he says, gesturing to the bed. Geralt meets his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

Jaskier only shrugs. “It’s a small bed. You sleep, I’ll be alright.”

“Your ribs are broken.”

“I’m a gentleman.”

Geralt doesn’t quite know what to make of that. So he doesn’t try. “Suit yourself,” he says.

It isn’t exactly an invitation, but the bed _would_ fit them both; it’s suitable enough. Except for the pillows, which might as well be boards for all the difference it would make.

It takes about twenty minutes before Jaskier sighs and moves across the room. Giving up on the little chair by the window, he gets into the bed on the right side, by the wall, and sets his mandolin down with a soft _twang_.

“It’s just weird, alright?” he says, pushing in behind the Witcher. Their backs are flush against each other, shoulder to shoulder. “Is it not weird for you at all?”

“No,” Geralt deadpans, without really knowing what he’s saying 'no' to. Then, after a beat, he finally says, “what?”

“Sleeping with you,” Jaskier answers honestly. “While you’re a woman.”

The Witcher thinks about this for exactly as long as it takes to ignore the uneasiness in the back of his mind. “Nothing‘s different,” he tries to insist. “I’m still me.”

Jaskier laughs softly behind him. “Have you seen you?”

“Go to sleep, Jaskier,” Geralt says. And for a while, there’s quiet.

*

The question comes in the middle of the night, softly at first, then louder. “Have you thought about what it’d be like, to have sex as a woman?”

The Witcher lies. “No.”

“You’re not curious at all?”

Geralt goes back to sleep to avoid replying.

*

He wakes up in the morning, but just before dawn. Maybe hours before; time holds less meaning when he’s not getting much of it. Geralt relishes in the stillness for the long, seemingly singular moment it lasts.

Then Jaskier stirs on the bed behind him. “Geralt?” he says.

“Hm,” he replies.

The bard coughs. Clears his throat. “How are you still so surly, even as a woman?”

It’s a stupid question, so it gets a stupid answer: none. But then Jaskier says his name again, prompting Geralt to sigh so deeply he can feel it in his bones. “What now?”

But the bard doesn’t reply. The silence stretches indefinitely long in its place—longer than Geralt thought it possible for Jaskier to be silent while conscious.

“Jas—"

“Could you move over, just a tiny bit?” he finally asks. “To your left?”

Geralt turns around and sits up, their flimsy excuse for a bedsheet dropping into his lap. He’s back to wearing one of his own shirts, and the slits for his arms are comically wide and comically long. They fill with the cool night air like a siren’s lungs might fill with water.

Jaskier looks taken aback by something. “You’re just—I mean, you’re much smaller as a woman, and it feels like a pity I still have to sleep on a quarter of the bed.”

Geralt idly considers this. “I could sleep on the floor,” he mumbles. “It’s a small bed.”

“That’s so terribly valiant of you,” Jaskier scoffs. “Just scoot to the side.”

He does, but only because he’s not sure what else to do. He’s tired and grouchy and uncomfortable, and every part of him feels like it’s pressed up against some corresponding part of the bard.

“Just shove me,” he says with an impatient huff. He drops back onto the bed, but now Jaskier’s lying on his back, inching closer, and his hand—

Geralt pulls away. There must be rocks in his pillow; thinking about that gives him something to concentrate on. Something that isn't the warmth of Jaskier's palms.

Jaskier makes a small sound in the back of his throat. “How dare you suggest I shove your dainty shoulders. I’d break you right in two,” he says.

The word _dainty_ sits in the air between them for a while, like the sting of a wasp. Aching. Sharp. Impersonal.

“Go to sleep, Jaskier,” Geralt says.

In the quiet whisper of night, he could’ve sworn he heard the bard say, “you make that almost impossible.”

He doesn’t press it.

He doesn’t have to.

*

Jaskier turns towards him in the darkness. His breathing is shallow, pained, but it’s easier now; easier than it had been when he was bleeding out in Geralt’s arms. “You’re trembling,” he whispers.

Geralt doesn’t trust his body to listen to him. All he can pay attention to is the heat coming off of Jaskier’s hands and legs and chest.

“It’s nothing,” he says.

“Let me do this for you,” Jaskier replies.

His touch is featherlight in the quiet of the early dawn. Geralt doesn’t want to stop him, and he says so, to both of them.

“Might’ve lied before,” he admits, as Jaskier’s nimble fingers tug at the loose end of his shirt. He leans back, easing into the bard’s hand as it skims up the smooth, pale skin of his stomach. Then it circles lower, and lower still.

“About what?” Jaskier asks, as the Witcher jerks a little at his touch. “Being curious?”

Geralt sucks in a breath and doesn’t answer.

*

There are worse things, Geralt decides, than straddling Jaskier’s hips and listening to the bard stutter out his name. Worse things than letting Jaskier pin him to the bed and hold his hands above his head, fucking him with the delicious tempo only a musician would know. Worse things than hearing Jaskier laugh but try to muffle the sound in the crux of his arm, his cheeks and neck as flushed as the rising sun, his skin as pink and red as sweet gem berries.

“Gods, I should break my ribs all the time,” he eventually says, sitting up while Geralt gently reties the bandages across his chest. Their room smells like sweat and chaos and sex. “I like this side of you.”

“This side?” Geralt echos, punctuating his thoughts by tugging on the bandages as sharply as a whip. Jaskier doubles forward and kisses him square on the mouth.

“I just wish you always looked at me like this,” he says wistfully, between wheezes. “Like I have purpose. Like I’m finally useful, even if it’s only in bed.”

“You always have purpose,” Geralt returns easily, honestly, without looking up. His hair has fallen forward into his face, blocking his view of whatever expression has twisted Jaskier’s lips.

They both wait a beat for the other to say something, but neither of them do. The silence almost turns vicious, but Geralt gets up from the bed before it does.

“Go to sleep, Jaskier,” he says, and the command would carry more weight if he didn’t stumble once he was back on his feet. His thighs _ache_ , and the smug look on the bard’s face twists something in Geralt’s chest that might not have been there before.

*

It takes two weeks, but the morning he’s a man again couldn’t have come soon enough. Geralt is tired of feeling soft; of being slow and feeling weak and getting tired after three rounds of sex in the same morning. He misses his stamina.

Jaskier, it seems, misses his tits.

“They were just so...” he gestures vaguely with his hands, smiling to himself while Geralt straightens his clothes and takes the stuffing out of his boots.

“You can go right back to fucking strangers this afternoon,” he bites out. He’s decided he’ll take the trade-off, since he has to. If Jaskier’s attention only lasted as long as there were curves to his hips, so be it.

But the bard is having none of that. “Do you want me to go back to fucking strangers?” he asks, and the hurt that pulls on the corners of his mouth actually startles Geralt enough to still his hands.

Raising an eyebrow, the Witcher simply says, “no.” And that’s the end of that.


End file.
